"Is it?" she made answer. "Has the Lord told thee so much, Helena? Ah! it may be—I know not, but I see nothing else to keep Him—it may be, that if all the earth would come to Him to-day, He would come to us to-morrow." "Holy Mother, I do not know what you mean by ’coming’ to Him!" "Dear Helena," she said gently, "thou wilt not know, till thou art ready to come." "But I do not understand that," said I. "How am I to get ready?" "’If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.’ ’If thou knewest the gift of God, thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given to thee water of life.’ Art thou not athirst? and dost thou not know the gift of God, dear maiden? Then ask Him to bestow on thee the thirst, and the knowledge." I really do not know whether it was right or wrong, but that night, after I had finished my Credo, and Paters, and the holy Angelical Salutation, I ventured to say, in my own words,—"Fair Father, Jesu Christ, give me what Lady Judith and Marguerite talk about." I hope it was not very wicked. I did so tremble! And I do not properly know what this thing is, only that it seems to make them happy; and why should I not be happy too? I suppose the good God will know all about it. And as He appears to be so condescending as to listen to Marguerite, who is but a villein, surely He will hear me, who am noble. It is so odd that Amaury, who is such a simpleton himself, should be perpetually calling me a simpleton. I do think, the more foolish people are, the more fond they are of exhorting others not to be silly. It is very funny. But this world is a queer place. "It is, indeed, Lynette," says Guy, with mock gravity, when I make the remark to him. "The queerest place I have been in these thirty years." As Guy is scarcely twenty-seven, it may be supposed I cannot help laughing. But there is another queer thing. It does really seem as if villeins—at least some villeins—had genuine feelings, just like us nobles. I have always thought that it was because Marguerite had associated so much with nobles, that she seemed a little different—just as you might impart the rose-scent to a handkerchief, if you shut it in a drawer with rose-leaves. But I know she did not become my mother’s nurse until after her husband was dead: so she must have had feelings before that, while she was no better off than any other villein. It is very incomprehensible. And I suppose, too, when one comes to think about it, we are all children of Adam and Eva. How did the difference come, to begin with? It is very difficult to tell how things began. It is a great deal easier to see how they end. Who would suppose, if men had never found out, that the great river Danube, which rolls into the Black Sea, almost like a sea itself in volume, came from the meltings of the ice and snow upon the hills of Switzerland?